Amusement threaded through his tone. "After what you've done to me, I think you deserve a few minutes of torture… don't you?" His fingertip glided in a small circle around the aching little tip of flesh where all sensation was gathering. "Would you like me to kiss you here?" he asked softly. "And touch it with my tongue?"
The questions jolted her-she had never imagined such a thing-and yet her entire body quivered in response.
"Tell me," he prompted gently.
Her lips were dry, and she had to wet them with her tongue before she could speak. To her utter shame, once the first words were out, she could not stop herself from begging shamelessly. "Yes, Andrew… kiss me there, use your tongue, I need you now, now please-"
Her voice dissolved into wild groans as he moved downward, his dark head dropping between her spread legs, his fingers smoothing the little dark curls and opening her pink lips even wider. His breath touched her first, a soft rush of steam, and then his tongue danced over her, gently prodding the burning little nub, flicking it with rapid strokes.
Caroline bit her lower lip sharply, struggling desperately to keep quiet despite the intense pleasure of his mouth on her. Andrew lifted his head as he heard the muffled sounds she made, and his eyes gleamed devilishly. "Scream all you like," he murmured. "There's no one to hear you."
His mouth returned to her, and she cried out, her bottom lifting eagerly from the mattress as she pushed herself toward him. He grunted with satisfaction and cradled her taut buttocks in his large, warm hands, while his mouth continued to feast on her. She felt the broad tip of his finger stroke against the tiny opening of her body, circling, teasing… entering with delicate skill.
"Feel how wet you are," he murmured against her slick flesh. "You're ready to be taken now. I could slide every inch of my cock inside you."
Then she understood why she had not been able to accommodate him before. "Please," she whispered, dying of need. "Please, Andrew."
His lips returned to her vulva, nuzzling the moist, sensitive folds. Gasping, Caroline went still as his finger slid deeply inside her, stroking in time to the sweet, rhythmic tug of his mouth. "My God," she said between frantic pants for breath, "I can't… oh, I can't bear it, please Andrew, my God-"
The world vanished in an explosion of fiery bliss. She sobbed and shivered, riding the current of pure ecstasy until she finally drifted in a tide of lethargy unlike anything she had ever experienced. Only then did his mouth and fingers leave her. Andrew tugged at the covers and linens, half lifting Caroline's body against his own, until they were wrapped in a cocoon of warm bedclothes. She lay beside him, her leg draped over his, her head pillowed on his hard shoulder. Shaken, exhausted, she relaxed in his arms, sharing the utter peace of aftermath, like the calm after a violent storm.
Andrew's hand smoothed over the wild ripples of her hair, spreading them over his own chest. After a long moment of bittersweet contentment, he spoke quietly, his lips brushing her temple.
"It was never a charade for me, Caroline. I fell in love with you from the moment we struck our infernal bargain. I loved your spirit, your strength, your beauty… I realized at once how special you were. And I knew that I didn't deserve you. But I had the damned foolish idea that somehow I might be able to become worthy of you. I wanted to make a new beginning, with you by my side. I even stopped caring about my father's bloody fortune. But in my arrogance I didn't consider the fact that no one can escape his past. And I have a thousand things to atone for… things that will keep turning up to haunt me for the rest of my life. You don't want to be part of that ugliness, Caroline. No man who loves a woman would ask her to live with him, wondering every day when some wretched part of his past will reappear."
"I don't understand." She lifted herself onto his chest, staring into his grave, tender expression. "Tell me what Julianne has done to change everything."
He sighed and stroked back a lock of her hair. It was clear that he did not want to tell her, but he would no longer with-hold the truth. "You know that Julianne and I once had an affair. For a while afterward, we remained friends of a sort. We are remarkably similar, Julianne and I-both of us selfish and manipulative and coldhearted-"
"No," Caroline said swiftly, placing her fingers on his mouth. "You're not like that, Andrew. At least not anymore."
A bleak smile curved his lips, and he kissed her fingers before continuing. "After the affair was over, Julianne and I amused ourselves by playing a game we had invented. We would each name a certain person-always a virtuous and well-respected one-whom the other had to seduce. The more difficult the target, the more irresistible the challenge. I named a high-ranking magistrate, the father of seven children, whom Julianne enticed into an affair."
"And whom did she select for you?" Caroline asked quietly, experiencing a strange mixture of revulsion and pity as she heard his sordid confession.
"One of her 'friends'-the wife of the Italian ambassador. Pretty, shy, and known for her modesty and God-fearing ways."
"You succeeded with her, I suppose."
He nodded without expression. "She was a good woman with a great deal to lose. She had a happy marriage, a loving husband, three healthy children… God knew how I was able to persuade her into a dalliance. But I did. And afterward, the only way she could assuage her guilt was to convince herself that she had fallen in love with me. She wrote me a few love letters, highly incriminating ones that she soon came to regret. I wanted to burn them-I should have-but I returned them to her, thinking that it would ease her worry if she could destroy them herself. Then she would never have to fear that one of them would turn up and ruin her life.
Instead the little fool kept them, and for some reason I'll never understand, she showed them to Julianne, who was posing as a concerned friend."
"And somehow Julianne gained possession of them," Caroline said softly.
"She's had them for almost five years. And the day after my father died, and it became known that he left me the Rochester fortune, Julianne paid me an unexpected visit. She has gone through her late husband's entire fortune. If she wishes to maintain her current lifestyle, she will have to marry a wealthy man. And it seems I have been given the dubious honor of being her chosen groom."
"She is blackmailing you with the letters?"
He nodded. "Unless I agreed to marry her, Julianne said she would make the damned things public, and ruin her so-called friend's life. And two things immediately became clear to me. I could never have you as my wife knowing that our marriage was based on the destruction of someone else's life. And with my past, it is only a matter of time until something else rears its ugly head. You would come to hate me, being constantly faced with new evidence of the sins I've committed." His mouth twisted bitterly. "Damned inconvenient thing, to develop a conscience. It was a hell of a lot easier before I had one."
Caroline was silent, staring down at his chest as her fingers stroked slowly through the dark curls. It was one thing to be told that a man had a wicked past, and certainly Andrew had never pretended otherwise. But the knowledge made far more of an impression on her now that she knew a few specifics about his former debauchery. The notion of his affair with Julianne, and the revolting games they had played with others' lives, sickened her. No one would blame her for rejecting Andrew, for agreeing that he was far too tarnished and corrupt. And yet… the fact that he had learned to feel regret, that he wished to protect the ambassador's wife even at the expense of his own happiness… that meant he had changed. It meant he was capable of becoming a far better man than he had been.
Besides, love was about caring for the whole man, including his flaws… and trusting that he felt the same about her. To her, that was worth any risk.